What means SALSA to me? (Part 3).

Hey everyone,

Tonight I want to share some information about a part of my life that I'm really missing right now!!!!....

As I Said before, I raised in a city that is very influenced by Dancing and nowadays by Salsa.

When I was 11, I started to participate in a art clubs in my school such as popular dance and music. I became very interested on them. I remember that the first dance style that I learned was Tango. It was very difficult to me because it was someting that no many people knew how to dance so only my dance teacher could help me to improve my steps. Milonga is another argentinian music that I worked on it and it's pretty similiar to Tango but it has some different kinds of steps.

After years of dancing in my school, I begun to be part of a professional dance group which only danced afro-antillean rythms like chachacha, mambo, son, danzon, pachanga and of course salsa. This groups was very special in Colombia because it innovated with a new style of dancing. Women used to dance with point shoes as they were dancing ballet. Many people thought that was really weird but somehow really amazing. These pictures were taken in january 2004 and they were two of the pictures that we had in our brochure.

In july 2004, we were invited for the Colombia's embassy in Spain to participate in a cultural week in Spain's Capital, Madrid. Before traveling, we practice our rutines thousands times because we knew that we needed to be amazing. When I traveled to the old continent, I was still studying in my last year in High school. It was my first time that I leave Colombia and what's more the embassy was paying everything for us. We had a great hotel, Food, trips around the city and many things, just because we were the guests. It was only one week and a half but it was a great experience. At that time, Even though there were already digital cameras, I was still using a clasic one. so, I have some pictures in Warner Bros Park, Trips in a bus around the city, Santiago Bernabeu Stadium and others....

After this trip, We were invited to participate in many events around Colombia so I knew a bounch of cities in my country.... In 2005, I came to the USA to dance in the Colombia's indepence day event which took place in Flushing Park, NY. This time, we expended much more time than in Spain. We were here for a complete month. We realized also that those Colombians who lived here and were attending to our shows, love and adore our country mucho more than anybody else. They felt themselves as if the were in Colombia by oberving us. They appreciate maybe more than us because they are far away their relatives and things they used to do....

We went to some towns in New Jersey, Some towns in Long Island, and also to Florida state. We danced in Tampa, Orlando Y Miami. I was only 17, but I felt that was an amazing and unique experience....

Well, I think it is everything so far, I have stoped my dancing for a while and because that, I think it is going to be hard for me to recoverd my physical state. Now, I want you to watch two videos of us when we were in orlando and won the second place in the salsa world championship in 2007.